(Martina) Daonne Huff

b. 1983, Birmingham, Alabama 

daonnedaonne@gmail.com / @ladydaydayday / Daonne Huff on vimeo / www.daonnehuff.com

​​

​

Bio

Daonne Huff is an arts worker, curator, performance centered artist and poet who was born and raised in Birmingham, AL. Her practice is rooted in observation, vulnerability, process, synchronicity, improvisation, inviting the inside outside and rendering the invisible visible. She has performed and exhibited at venues including BLDG 92, Black Lunch Table, Brooklyn Army Terminal, FiveMyles, JACK, Instagram, Mason Gross Galleries, Maysles Documentary Center, public parks and private living spaces, Transmitter Gallery, Welancora Gallery, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Zimmerli Museum of Art. Her work is in the collection of the Zimmerli Museum of Art. 

 

Daonne holds a BA in Art History from Vassar College and an MA in Visual Arts Administration with a Not-for-Profit concentration from New York University. For the majority of her career, Daonne has been dedicated to fostering best practices for ensuring the well-being and care of artists, increasing arts' accessibility to wider, more diversified audiences, expanding programmatic points of entry for how publics engage with art, as well as advocating for the support and necessity of creative expression and arts education within society at large. She has worked with institutions and organizations including Artadia, ArtTable, The Bronx Museum, Columbia University, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Galerie LeLong & Co., Groundswell, Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Laundromat Project, Museum of Modern Art, Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn Partnership, NADA, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, New York University, Nevada Museum of Art, The New School, Rutgers University and the Studio Museum in Harlem and Visual AIDS.

 

Daonne is currently on a self-determined sabbatical from full-time work in the art world to view it at a distance, to rehabilitate herself and to reassess her fundamental "why" now in the throes of her 40s. She is based in Hudson, NY.

 

​

CV

EDUCATION

• Upcoming: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME, Summer 2026

• New York University, New York, NY, M.A. in Visual Arts Administration (Not-for-Profit Concentration),  Thesis: The Space is the Place: Theaster Gates, Rick Lowe and Site-Sensitive Art Interventions, May 2013

• Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, B.A. in Art History, May 2005

• Alabama School of Fine Arts, Birmingham, AL, Major: Visual Arts, May 2001

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Front of House Manager, THE DARK Festival / PS21:Center for Contemporary Practice / Chatham, NY / February 2026 

• Adjunct Instructor / Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University / New York, NY / September 2025 - December 2025

• Residency Coordinator / James Weldon Johnson Fellowship in the Arts Residency / May 2025 - July 2025

• Research Assistant / Studio Museum History Book project -  The Studio Museum in Harlem / New York, NY / April 2025 - present

• Research Assistant / Isolde Brielmaier - New York University / New York, NY / January 2025 - present

• Artist Engagement Manager / Joan Mitchell Foundation / New York, NY / September 2023 – January 2025

• Director, Public Programs & Community Engagement / The Studio Museum in Harlem / New York, NY / December 2019 – September 2023

• MFA Program Coordinator (Visual Arts and Design) and Gallery Coordinator / Department of Art & Design, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey / New Brunswick, NJ / May 2016 – November 2019

• Project Manager / Groundswell / Brooklyn, NY / May 2013 – May 2016

• Project Coordinator and Curatorial Assistant / Isolde Brielmaier / NY, NY / July 2007 – September 2011

 

PERFORMANCES (Solo) 

• An Offering for Ondine, for the Dreamscapes I: Betrayals book release, Powerhouse Books/Arena, Brooklyn, NY,  May 13, 2025 

• For________Jonathan in loops (performed in utter darkness alone in rounds in a group in a call call call and response in the privacy of ), The Kitchen, New York, NY, May 11, 2024

• day cover(s) over “This Woman’s Work”: after Kate Bush after Maxwell after Dezron Douglas and Brandee Younger, Desmond’s House (private residence), New York, NY, August 19, 2023 

• Annual Valentine’s Day Poem 2023: Don’t let them take your Sparkle or Giving him something he can feel or I WANNA MAKE IT TO THE TOP! (A history of Billboard’s R&B Hits) [for Irene Cara, 1959-2022], Maysles Documentary Center, Harlem, NY, February 9, 2023 

• Annual Valentine’s Day Poem 2022: Let’s leave it all to chance and other c words or words that sound like it, are you Keeping up? But while I do, would you give me a sign so I can know from time to time?, Black Lunch Table, Instagram Live, March 5, 2022

• An Horizon of Possibility (or something something sublime something something in the stars) after Saidiya, after Alice, after Abbey, Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, August 14, 2021.

• A Need for Leafy Greens, Stimulus Progression 21, Mirror in the Woods, Brooklyn, NY August 24, 2019

• All the Things (for Mary Ellis 1750 -1828) [in 35 parts], Kara Walker presents The Colossus of Rutgers, Brooklyn Army Terminal, Brooklyn, NY, May 11, 2019                                      

• Tastes Like Chicken [ a protein source], Quantum Gossip, Motel Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, December 15, 2018

• I couldn’t find a dress for the Wedding, So I was in route to the Whitney, the co-cureate shows, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 29, 2017

 

PERFORMANCES (Collaborative)

• LOOK AT ALL THIS TIME! (for the wanderers, for Mahalia Jackson, for Noah Purifoy) with Aron Sanchez, FiveMyles, Brooklyn, NY, May 18, 2025

• mere mortals too close too close falling back (sky so sky) (after Anne Carson, Rachel Eisendrath, Byron Kim, Geoffrey Hendricks, Magritte, Kermit the Frog and so many others) (with Joshua Araujo, Arone Dyer, Kiowa Hammons and Aron Sanchez), FiveMyles, Brooklyn, NY, November 9, 2024

• Lacuna (A Thought) with Joshua Araujo for Waves of Time, Stand4 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, May 13, 2022

• From the Sea, Brought Wealth (with William Robinson and Ryan Veltmeyer), Nocturne Halifax 2020 / Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, NS, October 17, 2020

• HOT HANDS, Next, Nature (Evening Invocation and Midday Devotional), FiveMyles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, September 8 – 9, 2018

• My Sunshine (with Mariangela Ciccarello), The Perpetual Care Society presents: Black Mold, Kirkpatrick Chapel, New Brunswick, NJ, April 24, 2018

• HOT HANDS, The Glass Eye (revisited), JACK, Brooklyn, NY, April 16, 2018 

• HOT HANDS, 5 Parts of One W(hole), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, June 8, 2017

• HOT HANDS, Prism, Mirror, Lens, In Flux Festival and BRIC Biennial 2016, FiveMyles Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, November 21, 2016

• HOT HANDS, The Glass Eye, BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, NY, February 26, 2016

• HOT HANDS, These Hands Built, BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, NY, February 21, 2015

• Paradise Club, The Days of Cage, Dick, and Perky Pat, Manhattan Bridge Archway sponsored by Norte Maar Gallery, Experiments in Art and Technology, and Dumbo Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY, September 15, 2012

 

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• A Discourse of Accord, Transmitter Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, August 14 - September 19, 2021

• How Did You Get This? The Spaces We Inhabit, Welancora Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, March 14 - September 13, 2020

• Bring Samples, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 3 – September 18, 2019

• Silent Reading Hour with Sparkle Nation Book Club on Montez Press Radio, NY, NY, July 25 - 28, 2019

• Kara Walker presents The Colossus of Rutgers, Brooklyn Army Terminal, Brooklyn, NY May 11 – May 25, 2019

• Library Voice, the co-cureate shows, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 26 – October 12, 2018

• Look Both Ways, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 4 – September 19, 2018

• HOT HANDS, DebtFair by Occupy Museums, Whitney Biennial 2017, New York, NY, March 17 – June 11, 2017

• Please do not spit in the garden, the co-cureate shows, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 28 – October 16, 2017

• Leftovers, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 5 – September 20, 2017

• Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association, Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ, March 25 – July 2, 2017

• HOT HANDS, Back Wash, Mason Gross Galleries, New Brunswick, NJ, September 6 – September 20, 2016

 

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS (selected)

• Interviewer, “Yvonne Wells in Conversation with Dr. Stacy Morgan and Daonne Huff,” Fort Gansevoort, September 20, 2024 

• Moderator, Darryl Chappell Foundation presents “Dignity Manifests in the Black Photographic Image: Lola Flash in Conversation with Aaron R. Turner,” Penumbra Foundation, September 7, 2024

• Moderator, “Through the Lens: Honoring the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams,” AIA New York | Center for Architecture, October 18, 2023 

• Presenter, “Museums as Systems: A Model for Remixing and Rebuilding from Within,” American Alliance of Museums Annual Meeting and MuseumExpo, May 20, 2023 

• Moderator, “A Meditation of Sorts on House and Home: A Conversation with Janna Ireland” for the “Through the Lens: Honoring the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams Symposium," Nevada Museum of Art, July 16, 2022

• Moderator, “Galerie Lelong: Open Doors / Dialogues: On Open Spaces with Carl E. Hazlewood, Helen Evans Ramsaran, Chris Watts and June Edmonds," Gallery LeLong, July 7, 2022

• Moderator, “Behold Exhibition: Artist Talk with Oasa Duverney, Sana Musasama, Komikka Patton, Chris Watts and Roberto Visani,” Welancora Gallery, January 9, 2022

• Moderator, “Artists and Archives with Sadie Barnette, Bethany Collins and Steffani Jemison,” Zimmerli Art Museum, October 25, 2021

• Panelist, “Diversity in the Arts: Beyond Tokenism,” NYU Steinhardt, April 9, 2021

• Facilitator, “Sunday Sessions / Deep River Readings,” Asylum Arts, October 25, November 8 and 22, 2020

• Panelist, “Making Space: Art and Generative Communal Practices,” POWarts, New York, NY, October 8, 2020

• Presenter, “From White Cube to Storefront & Street // Alternative Approaches & Perspectives for Artists’ Visibility // Case Study: Black Artstory Month”, Temp to Perm: Public Art Conference, Portland, ME, June 2017

• Presenter, “Artist Slide Slam,” Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ, April 4, 2017

• Presenter, “Reclaiming Community Narrative and Identity from Within”, Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum NYC, Brooklyn, NY, Nov 14, 2015

• Panelist,” Arts and Juvenile Justice: Creating Opportunities, Catalyzing Change”, National Guild for Community Arts Education Conference, Philadelphia, PA, Nov 13, 2015

• Presenter, “Art Talks Brooklyn,” The Way Station, Brooklyn, NY, Nov 11, 2014

• Panelist, “Art and Curatorial Practice in Public Space,” City as Archive/NeWWalls Newark, Newark, NJ, August 16, 2014

• Moderator, “The New Muralism,” Fountain Art Fair, New York,NY, March 9, 2014​​

​

CURATORIAL / PROGRAMMING

• Like a child or I go on the playground swings when no one’s around or giggle is such an embodied word (For Eloise Greenfield) / NADA Curated (New Art Dealers Alliance) / November 8, 2022 - January 2, 2023 [online exhibition] 

• Kara Walker presents The Colossus of Rutgers, Brooklyn Army Terminal, Brooklyn, NY, May 11 – May 25, 2019

• The Perpetual Care Society presents: Black Mold, Kirkpatrick Chapel, New Brunswick, NJ, April 24, 2018

• Atlanta Ladies Memorial Association, Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ, March 25 – July 2, 2017

• Some Assembly Required, multiple sites across Fort Greene/Clinton Hill for Black Artstory Month 2016, Brooklyn, NY, February 1 – 29, 2016

• These Hands Built, Tipsy and BLDG 92 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn, NY, February 1 – 28, 2015

• Native Sons and Daughters: Local, (Im)migrants, Expats and Prodigals, multiple sites across Fort Greene/Clinton Hill for Black Artstory Month 2014, Brooklyn, NY, February 1 – 28, 2014

• A Patchwork Story, Myrtle Windows Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, February 1 – 28, 2013

• Black Artstory Month on Myrtle, multiple sites across Fort Greene/Clinton Hill for Black Artstory Month 2013, Brooklyn, NY, February 1 – 28, 2013

 

PUBLICATIONS (selected)

• “Martha Jane Pettway”, “David Hammons”, “Tom Lloyd”, and “Adam Pendleton.” Meaning Matter Memory: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem Collection. (New York, NY and London, U.K. :Phaidon Press, Inc.), 2025.

• “do you have oatmilk? (a polyptych to breastfeeding)”, Mother & Child issue, Metphrastics (online journal), Spring 2025

• “Tom Lloyd”, Studio, Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine (print version), Spring/Summer 2025 

• “SPACE SPACE SPACE!”, Studio, Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine (print version), Fall 2022/Winter 2023

• “ON  SCAPES : Let me know you made it there okay. Send a postcard,?” Studio, Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine (web version), July 2022.

• “A Litany of Aesthetics (Composition in Black, White, and Grey)”in Aaron Turner’s There May Still Be Time Left, (Rochester, New York: Visual Studies Workshop Press), 2022

• "On Abstraction: Things You Can’t Tell Just By Looking At Us.” Studio, Studio Museum in Harlem Magazine (web version) October 8, 2020

• Like a Day: Rutgers in NY, Department of Art & Design, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 2019

 

ADVISORY / BOARDS

• Artistic Noise /  2022 - 2025 (Board Member)

• The Africa Center / 2021- 2023 (Advisor)

• Angela Davis: Seize the Time, Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ, September 8, 2021 - June 15, 2022 (Advisor)

• Grounds for Sculpture / 2020 - present (Advisor)

• Lost Souls Public Memorial Project, 2018 – 2021, East Brunswick, NJ (Advisor)

• Windows of Understanding, New Brunswick, NJ, October 2017 – 2022 (Public Art Consultant and Facilitator) 

​

GUEST SPEAKER / CRITIC  

• The New School

• New York University

• Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 

• Studio Museum in Harlem 

• Lake Forest College

• ArtTable 

• Nars Foundation 

 

JURIES / SELECTION COMMITTEES

• The Shed

• Artadia 

• Lucie Awards  

 

FELLOWSHIPS / RESIDENCIES 

• Powerhouse Residency, Liberty, NY, 2025 

• James Weldon Johnson Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, Great Barrington, MA, 2025

• Groundwork, VIII, Shokan, NY 2020

• Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation Curatorial Fellowship, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, 2013 

 

COLLECTIONS

• Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University